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The Valley Of Decision

E >> Edith Wharton >> The Valley Of Decision




Alfieri replied with a contemptuous gesture. "Your Highness, our leading
tragedians are monkeys trained to dance to the tune of Goldoni and
Metastasio. The best are no better than the worst. We have no tragedians
in Italy because--hitherto--we have had no tragic dramatist." He drew
himself up and thrust a hand in his bosom. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "if I
could see the part of Virginia acted by the lady who recently recited,
before a small company in Milan, my Odes to Free America! There indeed
were fire, sublimity and passion! And the countenance had not lost its
freshness, the eye its lustre. But," he suddenly added, "your Highness
knows of whom I speak. The lady is Fulvia Vivaldi, the daughter of the
philosopher at whose feet we sat in our youth."

Fulvia Vivaldi! Odo raised his head with a start. She had left Geneva
then, had returned to Italy. The Alps no longer divided them--a scant
day's journey would bring him to her side! It was strange how the mere
thought seemed to fill the room with her presence. He felt her in the
quickened beat of his pulses, in the sudden lightness of the air, in a
lifting and widening of the very bounds of thought.

From Alfieri he learned that she had lived for some months in the
household of the distinguished naturalist, Count Castiglione, with whose
daughter's education she was charged. In such surroundings her wit and
learning could not fail to attract the best company of Milan, and she
was become one of the most noted figures of the capital. There had been
some talk of offering her the chair of poetry at the Brera; but the
report of her liberal views had deterred the faculty. Meanwhile the very
fact that she represented the new school of thought gave an added zest
to her conversation in a society which made up for its mild servitude
under the Austrian by much talk of liberalism and independence. The
Signorina Vivaldi became the fashion. The literati celebrated her
scholarship, the sonneteers her eloquence and beauty; and no foreigner
on the grand tour was content to leave Milan without having beheld the
fair prodigy and heard her recite Petrarch's Ode to Italy, or the latest
elegy of Pindamonte.

Odo scarce knew with what feelings he listened. He could not but
acknowledge that such a life was better suited to one of Fulvia's gifts
and ambitions than the humdrum existence of a Swiss town; yet his first
sensation was one of obscure jealousy, of reluctance to think of her as
having definitely broken with the past. He had pictured her as adrift,
like himself, on a dark sea of uncertainties; and to learn that she had
found a safe anchorage was almost to feel himself deserted.

The court was soon busy with preparations for the coming performance. A
celebrated actress from Venice was engaged to play the part of Virginia,
and the rehearsals went rapidly forward under the noble author's
supervision. At last the great day arrived, and for the first time in
the history of the little theatre, operetta and pastoral were replaced
by the buskined Muse of tragedy. The court and all the nobility were
present, and though it was no longer thought becoming for ecclesiastics
to visit the theatre, the easy-going Bishop appeared in a side-box in
company with his chaplains and the Vicar-general.

The performance was brilliantly successful. Frantic applause greeted the
tirades of the young Icilius. Every outburst against the abuse of
privileges and the insolence of the patricians was acclaimed by
ministers and courtiers, and the loudest in approval were the Marquess
Pievepelago, the recognised representative of the clericals, the
Marchioness of Boscofolto, whose harsh enforcement of her feudal rights
was among the bitterest grievances of the peasantry, and the good
Bishop, who had lately roused himself from his habitual indolence to
oppose the threatened annexation of the Caccia del Vescovo. One and all
proclaimed their ardent sympathy with the proletariat, their scorn of
tyranny and extortion in high places; and if the Marchioness, on her
return home, ordered one of her linkmen to be flogged for having trod on
her gown; if Pievepelago the next morning refused to give audience to a
poor devil of a pamphleteer that was come to ask his intercession with
the Holy Office; if the Bishop at the same moment concluded the purchase
of six able-bodied Turks from the galleys of his Serenity the Doge of
Genoa--it is probable that, like the illustrious author of the drama,
all were unconscious of any incongruity between their sentiments and
actions.

As to Odo, seated in the state box, with Maria Clementina at his side,
and the court dignitaries grouped in the background, he had not listened
to a dozen lines before all sense of his surroundings vanished and he
became the passive instrument on which the poet played his mighty
harmonies. All the incidental difficulties of life, all the vacillations
of an unsatisfied spirit, were consumed in that energising emotion which
seemed to leave every faculty stripped for action. Profounder meaning
and more subtle music he had found in the great poets of the past; but
here was an appeal to the immediate needs of the hour, uttered in notes
as thrilling as a trumpet-call, and brought home to every sense by the
vivid imagery of the stage. Once more he felt the old ardour of belief
that Fulvia's nearness had fanned in him. His convictions had flagged
rather than his courage: now they started up as at her summons, and he
heard the ring of her voice in every line.

He left the theatre still vibrating with this new inrush of life, and
jealous of any interruption that should check it. The Duchess's birthday
was being celebrated by illuminations and fireworks, and throngs of
merry-makers filled the moonlit streets; but Odo, after appearing for a
moment at his wife's side on the balcony above the public square,
withdrew quietly to his own apartments. The casement of his closet stood
wide, and he leaned against the window-frame, looking out on the silent
radiance of the gardens. As he stood there he saw two figures flit
across the farther end of one of the long alleys. The moonlight
surrendered them for a moment, the shade almost instantly reclaiming
them--strayed revellers, doubtless, escaping from the lights and music
of the Duchess's circle.

A knock roused the Duke and he remembered that he had bidden Gamba wait
on him after the performance. He had been curious to hear what
impression Alfieri's drama had produced upon the hunchback; but now any
interruption seemed unwelcome, and he turned to Gamba with a gesture of
dismissal.

The latter however remained on the threshold.

"Your Highness," he said, "the bookseller Andreoni craves the privilege
of an audience."

"Andreoni? At this hour?"

"For reasons so urgent that he makes no doubt of your Highness's
consent; and to prove his good faith, and the need of presenting himself
at so undue an hour, and in this private manner, he charged me to give
this to your Highness."

He laid in the Duke's hand a small object in blackened silver, which on
nearer inspection proved to be the ducal coat-of-arms.

Odo stood gazing fixedly at this mysterious token, which seemed to come
as an answer to his inmost thoughts. His heart beat high with confused
hopes and fears, and he could hardly control the voice in which he
answered: "Bid Andreoni come to me."


4.4.

The bookseller began by excusing himself for the liberty he had taken.
He explained that the Signorina Fulvia Vivaldi, in whose behalf he came,
was in urgent need of aid, and had begged him to wait on the Duke as
soon as the court had risen from the play.

"She is in Pianura, then?" Odo exclaimed.

"Since yesterday, your Highness. Three days since she was ordered by the
police to leave Milan within twenty-four hours, and she came at once to
Pianura, knowing that my wife and I would gladly receive her. But today
we learned that the Holy Office was advised of her presence here, and of
the reason of her banishment from Lombardy; and this fresh danger has
forced her to implore your Highness's protection."

Andreoni went on to explain that the publication of her father's book
was the immediate cause of Fulvia's persecution. The Origin of
Civilisation, which had been printed some months previously in
Amsterdam, had stirred Italy more profoundly than any book since
Beccaria's great work on Crime and Punishment. The author's historical
investigations were but a pretext for the development of his political
theories, which were set forth with singular daring and audacity, and
supported by all the arguments that his long study of the past
commanded. The temperate and judicial tone which he had succeeded in
preserving enhanced the effect of his arraignment of Church and state,
and while his immense erudition commended his work to the learned, its
directness of style gave it an immediate popularity with the general
reader. It was an age when every book or pamphlet bearing on the great
question of personal liberty was eagerly devoured by an insatiable
public; and a few weeks after Vivaldi's volume had been smuggled into
Italy it was the talk of every club and coffee-house from Calabria to
Piedmont. The inevitable result soon followed. The Holy Office got wind
of the business, and the book was at once put on the Index. In Naples
and Bologna it was publicly burned, and in Modena a professor of the
University who was found to have a copy in his possession was fined and
removed from his chair.

In Milan, where the strong liberal faction among the nobility, and the
comparative leniency of the Austrian rule, permitted a more unrestrained
discussion of political questions, the Origin of Civilisation was
received with open enthusiasm, and the story of the difficulties that
Fulvia had encountered in its publication made her the heroine of the
moment. She had never concealed her devotion to her father's doctrines,
and in the first glow of filial pride she may have yielded too openly to
the desire to propagate them. Certain it is that she began to be looked
on as having shared in the writing of the book, or as being at least an
active exponent of its principles. Even in Lombardy it was not well to
be too openly associated with the authorship of a condemned book; and
Fulvia was suddenly advised by the police that her presence in Milan was
no longer acceptable to the government.

The news excited great indignation among her friends, and Count
Castiglione and several other gentlemen of rank hastened to intervene in
her behalf; but the governor declared himself unwilling to take issue
with the Holy Office on a doctrinal point, and privately added that it
would be well for the Signorina Vivaldi to withdraw from Lombardy before
the clergy brought any direct charge against her. To ignore this hint
would have been to risk not only her own safety but that of the
gentlemen who had befriended her; and Fulvia at once set out for
Pianura, the only place in Italy where she could count on friendship and
protection.

Andreoni and his wife would gladly have given her a home; but on
learning that the Holy Office was on her track, she had refused to
compromise them by remaining under their roof, and had insisted that
Andreoni should wait on the Duke and obtain a safe-conduct for her that
very night.

Odo listened to this story with an agitation compounded of strangely
contradictory sensations. To learn that Fulvia, at the very moment when
he had pictured her as separated from him by the happiness and security
of her life, was in reality a proscribed wanderer with none but himself
to turn to, filled him with a confused sense of happiness; but the
discovery that, in his own dominions, the political refugee was not safe
from the threats of the Holy Office, excited a different emotion. All
these considerations, however, were subordinate to the thought that he
must see Fulvia at once. It was impossible to summon her to the palace
at that hour, or even to secure her safety till morning, without
compromising Andreoni by calling attention to the fact that a suspected
person was under his roof; and for a moment Odo was at a loss how to
detain her in Pianura without seeming to go counter to her wishes.

Suddenly he remembered that Gamba was fertile in expedients, and calling
in the hunchback, asked what plan he could devise. Gamba, after a
moment's reflection, drew a key from his pocket.

"May it please your Highness," he said, "this unlocks the door of the
hunting-lodge at Pontesordo. The place has been deserted these many
years, because of its bad name, and I have more than once found it a
convenient shelter when I had reasons for wishing to be private. At this
season there is no fear of poison from the marshes, and if your Highness
desires I will see that the lady finds her way there before sunrise."

The sun had hardly risen the next morning when the Duke himself set
forth. He rode alone, dressed like one of his own esquires, and gave the
word unremarked to the sleepy sentinel at the gate. As it closed behind
him and he set out down the long road that led to the chase, it seemed
to him that the morning solitude was thronged with spectral memories.
Melancholy and fanciful they flitted before him, now in the guise of
Cerveno and Momola, now of Maria Clementina and himself. Every detail of
the scene was interwoven with the fibres of early association, from the
far off years when, as a lonely child on the farm at Pontesordo, he had
gazed across the marsh at the mysterious woodlands of the chase, to the
later day when, in the deserted hunting-lodge, the Duchess had flung her
whip at the face in the Venice mirror.

He pressed forward impatiently, and presently the lodge rose before him
in its grassy solitude. The level sunbeams had not yet penetrated the
surrounding palisade of boughs, and the house lay in a chill twilight
that seemed an emanation from its mouldering walls. As Odo approached,
Gamba appeared from the shadow and took his horse; and the next moment
he had pushed open the door, and stood in Fulvia's presence.

She was seated at the farther end of the room, and as she rose to meet
him it chanced that her head, enveloped in its black travelling-hood,
was relieved for a moment against the tarnished background of the broken
mirror. The impression struck a chill to his heart; but it was replaced
by a glow of boyish happiness as their eyes met and he felt her hands in
his.

For a moment all his thoughts were lost in the mere sense of her
nearness. She seemed simply an enveloping atmosphere in which he drew
fresh breath; but gradually her outline emerged from this haze of
feeling, and he found himself looking at her with the wondering gaze of
a stranger. She had been a girl of sixteen when they first met. Twelve
years had passed since then, and she was now a woman of twenty-eight,
belonging to a race in which beauty ripens early and as soon declines.
But some happy property of nature--whether the rare mould of her
features or the gift of the spirit that informed them--had held her
loveliness intact, preserving the clear lines of youth after its bloom
was gone, and making her seem like a lover's memory of herself. So she
appeared at first, a bright imponderable presence gliding toward him out
of the past; but as her hands lay in his the warm current of life was
renewed between them, and the woman dispossessed the shade.


4.5.

Unpublished fragment from Mr. Arthur Young's diary of his travels in
Italy in the year 1789.

October 1st.

Having agreed with a vetturino to carry me to Pianura, set out this
morning from Mantua. The country mostly arable, with rows of elm and
maple pollard. Dined at Casal Maggiore, in an infamous filthy inn. At
dinner was joined by a gentleman who had taken the other seat in the
vettura as far as Pianura. We engaged in conversation and I found him a
man of lively intelligence and the most polished address. Though dressed
in the foreign style, en abbe, he spoke English with as much fluency as
myself, and but for the philosophical tone of his remarks I had taken
him for an ecclesiastic. Altogether a striking and somewhat perplexing
character: able, keen, intelligent, evidently used to the best company,
yet acquainted with the condition of the people, the methods of farming,
and other economical subjects such as are seldom thought worthy of
attention among Italians of quality.

It appeared he was newly from France, where he had been as much struck
as myself by the general state of ferment. Though owning that there was
much reason for discontent, and that the conduct of the court and
ministers was blind and infatuated beyond belief, he yet declared
himself gravely apprehensive of the future, saying that the people knew
not what they wanted, and were unwilling to listen to those that might
have proved their best advisors. Whether by this he meant the clergy I
know not; though I observed he spoke favourably of that body in France,
pointing out that, long before the recent agitations, they had defended
the civil rights of the Third Estate, and citing many cases in which the
country curates had shown themselves the truest friends of the people: a
fact my own observation hath confirmed.

I remarked to him that I was surprised to find how little talk there was
in Italy of the distracted conditions in France; and this though the
country is overrun with French refugees, or emigres, as they call
themselves, who bring with them reports that might well excite the alarm
of neighbouring governments. He said he had remarked the same
indifference, but that this was consonant with the Italian character,
which never looked to the morrow; and he added that the mild disposition
of the people, and their profound respect for religion, were sufficient
assurance against any political excess.

To this I could not forbear replying that I could not regard as excesses
the just protests of the poor against the unlawful tyranny of the
privileged classes, nor forbear to hail with joy the dawn of that light
of freedom which hath already shed so sublime an effulgence on the wilds
of the New World. The abate took this in good part, though I could see
he was not wholly of my way of thinking; but he declared that in his
opinion different races needed different laws, and that the sturdy and
temperate American colonists were fitted to enjoy a greater measure of
political freedom than the more volatile French and Italians--as though
liberty were not destined by the Creator to be equally shared by all
mankind! (Footnote: I let this passage stand, though the late unhappy
events in France have, alas! proved that my friend the abate was nearer
right than myself. June, 1794.)

In the afternoon through a poor country to Ponte di Po, a miserable
village on the borders of the duchy, where we lay, not slept, in our
clothes, at the worst inn I have yet encountered. Here our luggage was
plumbed for Pianura. The impertinence of the petty sovereigns to
travellers in Italy is often intolerable, and the customs officers show
the utmost insolence in the search for seditious pamphlets and other
contraband articles; but here I was agreeably surprised by the courtesy
of the officials and the despatch with which our luggage was examined.
On my remarking this, my companion replied that the Duke of Pianura was
a man of liberal views, anxious to encourage foreigners to visit his
state, and the last to put petty obstacles in the way of travel. I
answered, this was the report I had heard of him; and it was in the hope
of learning something more of the reforms he was said to have effected,
that I had turned aside to visit the duchy. My companion replied that
his Highness had in fact introduced some innovations in the government;
but that changes which seemed the most beneficial in one direction often
worked mischief in another, so that the wisest ruler was perhaps not he
that did the greatest amount of good, but he that was cause of the
fewest evils.

The 2nd.

From Ponte di Po to Pianura the most convenient way is by water; but the
river Piana being greatly swollen by the late rains, my friend, who
seems well-acquainted with the country, proposed driving thither: a
suggestion I readily accepted, as it gave me a good opportunity to study
the roads and farms of the duchy.

Crossing the Piana, drove near four hours over horrible roads across
waste land, thinly wooded, without houses or cultivation. On my
expressing surprise that the territory of so enlightened a prince would
lie thus neglected, the abate said this land was a fief of the see of
Pianura, and that the Duke was desirous of annexing it to the duchy. I
asked if it were true that his Highness had given his people a
constitution modelled on that of the Duke of Tuscany. He said he had
heard the report; but that for his part he must deplore any measure
tending to debar the clergy from the possession of land. Seeing my
surprise, he explained that, in Italy at least, the religious orders
were far better landlords than the great nobles or the petty sovereigns,
who, being for the most part absent from their estates, left their
peasantry to be pillaged by rapacious middlemen and stewards: an
argument I have heard advanced by other travellers, and have myself had
frequent occasion to corroborate.

On leaving the Bishop's domain, remarked an improvement in the roads.
Flat land, well irrigated, and divided as usual into small holdings. The
pernicious metayer system exists everywhere, but I am told the Duke is
opposed to it, though it is upheld not only by the landed class, but by
the numerous economists that write on agriculture from their closets,
but would doubtless be sorely puzzled to distinguish a beet-root from a
turnip.

The 3rd.

Set out early to visit Pianura. The city clean and well-kept. The Duke
has introduced street-lamps, such as are used in Turin, and the pavement
is remarkably fair and even. Few beggars are to be seen and the people
have a thriving look. Visited the Cathedral and Baptistery, in the
Gothic style, more curious than beautiful; also the Duke's picture
gallery.

Learning that the Duchess was to ride out in the afternoon, had the
curiosity to walk abroad to see her. A good view of her as she left the
palace. Though no longer in her first youth she is one of the handsomest
women I have seen. Remarked a decided likeness to the Queen of France,
though the eye and smile are less engaging. The people in the streets
received her sullenly, and I am told her debts and disorders are the
scandal of the town. She has, of course, her cicisbeo, and the Duke is
the devoted slave of a learned lady, who is said to exert an unlimited
influence over him, and to have done much to better the condition of the
people. A new part for a prince's mistress to play!

In the evening to the theatre, a handsome building, well-lit with wax,
where Cimarosa's Due Baroni was agreeably sung.

The 4th.

My lord Hervey, in Florence, having favoured me with a letter to Count
Trescorre, the Duke's prime minister, I waited on that gentleman
yesterday. His excellency received me politely and assured me that he
knew me by reputation and would do all he could to put me in the way of
investigating the agricultural conditions of the duchy. Contrary to the
Italian custom, he invited me to dine with him the next day. As a rule
these great nobles do not open their doors to foreigners, however well
recommended.

Visited, by appointment, the press of the celebrated Andreoni, who was
banished during the late Duke's reign for suspected liberal tendencies,
but is now restored to favour and placed at the head of the Royal
Typography. Signor Andreoni received me with every mark of esteem, and
after having shown me some of the finest examples of his work--such as
the Pindar, the Lucretius and the Dante--accompanied me to a
neighbouring coffee-house, where I was introduced to several lovers of
agriculture. Here I learned some particulars of the Duke's attempted
reforms. He has undertaken the work of draining the vast marsh of
Pontesordo, to the west of the city, notorious for its mal'aria; has
renounced the monopoly of corn and tobacco; has taken the University out
of the hands of the Barnabites, and introduced the teaching of the
physical sciences, formerly prohibited by the Church; has spent since
his accession near 200,000 liv. on improving the roads throughout the
duchy, and is now engaged in framing a constitution which shall deprive
the clergy of the greatest part of their privileges and confirm the
sovereign's right to annex ecclesiastical territory for the benefit of
the people.

In spite of these radical measures, his Highness is not popular with the
masses. He is accused of irreligion by the monks that he has removed
from the University, and his mistress, the daughter of a noted
free-thinker who was driven from Piedmont by the Inquisition, is said to
have an unholy influence over him. I am told these rumours are
diligently fomented by the late Duke's minister, now Prior of the
Dominican monastery, a man of bigoted views but great astuteness. The
truth is, the people are so completely under the influence of the friars
that a word is enough to turn them against their truest benefactors.

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